What Are You Reading?

[Spark Of Spirit]

Domon and the Ensui kid feel like Kuwabara and Kurama until you get further along. Domon isn't as lunkheaded as Kuwabara and is actually one of the best of the group and the Ensui kid while he has a cool head is not anywhere near a planner or as strong as Kurama was.

He starts with similar tropes of characters and builds away from them.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Currently rereading bits of the YYH manga for reference.

Awesome panel:

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Yeah, at the right parts the manga is just as engaging as the anime, and while I still prefer the anime on the whole, to Togashi's credit he has some moments in the manga that were so good that not even the anime could do them justice. I think that Togashi's primary strength is to keep things moving at a quick pace and to keep the level of exposition to a minimum (well, HXH has a lot of exposition, but its almost always necessary), especially with the YYH manga which always gets straight down to the point. In this regard, I kind of wish that Flame of Recca had also taken this little aspect of YYH as well, since the story in FoR, while interesting, can at times get bogged down by awkward pacing. Of course, Togashi just rushed things too much with the final arc, whereas he took things a bit too slow with the first arc, but overall its clear that he had everything under complete control after Yusuke came back to life up until the end of the Chapter Black arc.

[gunswordfist]

The manga just went up on my list.

[ToonFaithful]

I'm currently reading Green Lantern: The Sinestro Corps War. After lurking on CBR's forum and seeing people claim it as a "must-read" arc, I decided to play ball. Also, since I didn't know much about GL, thought it would be an exciting and helpful read.

I'm on issue #3 right now and the build-up is really good. Lots of action, I see that John & the crew aren't afraid of killing off characters. :0

[ToonFaithful]

Done with the Sinestro Corps War. Now reading Rage of the Red Lanterns. Outta figured that reading this would give me more insight on the Red Lanterns and what they'll be doing in Green Lantern: The Animated Series. Surprised I'm this far up in the franchise, mainly because of the fact when I first started reading it was all about Hal Jordan returning to Hal joining the rage team. Can't wait until Blackest Night though, from the reviews I heard it was good or just exciting.

Rage of the Red Lanterns is pretty good so far. Liking the way I'm learning about the seven corps. Willpower, fear, rage, compassion, love, and most importantly IMO, hope. Technically that's six corps if you exclude Agent Orange, but whatever, I'm enjoying this comic!

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I realized that I should start getting in to the works of the highly respected Osamu Tezuka (and to a lesser extent I need to try some stuff from Leiji Matsumoto later on). I decided to start reading Black Jack since its easy enough to find and is a good length of 17 volumes (not too short or too long, which is perfect for me). I only intended to read one chapter now but I already got an entire volume down in no time. Its REALLY good. I also have to say that I love the art-style (I really do miss the more simplistic art-style of the early era of anime, to be honest).

Anyways, if the entire series is really this good, then I'll be jumping into Astro Boy right away after I'm done with this.

I'm also slowly getting back into trying to finish up Flame of Recca. I liked the tournament arc but everything after that has been kind of boring so far, to be honest, but I'm hoping that it will pick up its pace once again as I keep moving forward with the story.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Read a Batman oneshot called Gotham Noir by Brubaker and Phillips. It's so good that it just seems unfair that we don't get more stories like these instead of Morrison's clusterfuck.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Read a bit of LOEG: 1969. And it sadly seems that Moore's finally lost it.

Not his sanity, which has been gone since the Eocene era, but his quality. Some of his more recent works like this and Neonomicon haven't been hitting the right spots. Most of the book just seemed to be dedicated to "BWAHAHA! Look at how much 60s British culture I've researched!" instead of focusing on anything resembling a story.

[Dr. Insomniac]

The Favorite Manga thread reminded me that I haven't finished 20th Century Boys yet, so I'm on the last volume and will probably read 21st sometime tomorrow morning. Is it odd that I find Takasu more unnerving than Friend?

[Pharass]

I've read Joshua the first album in the comic Le Pouvoir des Innocents (The Power of the Innocents). A French comic that takes place in NY. This first album out of five serves mostly to setup the plot and introduce us to the various protagonists and it does an excellent job with that. I will reserve final judgment until I've read the entire series, but for now this series has the potential to be one of my all-time favorites.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

What with the upcoming new Rurouni Kenshin anime AND live-action movie coming out in the near future, I thought that now was as good a time as any to re-read the manga since I haven't gone back to it in years.

Even though the first arc is considerably weaker than everything that comes after it, it still amazes me how well the story-telling of this manga has aged. I could swear that Watsuki was a veteran mangaka when he wrote RK so masterfully, and yet he was considered a complete newbie among fellow mangaka when he first started this series (as his first major serialization, in fact). Its funny how everything he did after RK is what feels like the work of a newbie to the field when he was technically a veteran by the time he finished RK. I guess its sort of similar to how various artists/authors come out with one big hit which manages to strike a cord with many people and get them hooked, but then fail to capture that same level of success with any of their other works (much like Mario Puzo with The Godfather).

I really hope that the new anime and live-action film manage to be both faithful and overall well-executed adaptations of the manga, as it deserves to have another brilliant adaptation of it (with the last one having been Trust and Betrayal, something I plan to re-watch later on, as well).

[Spark Of Spirit]

It's one of my favorite manga just because of how well everything is executed, like Watsuki just knew this world inside and out. The timeless feel and writing never gets old, either.

[gunswordfist]

What with the upcoming new Rurouni Kenshin anime AND live-action movie coming out in the near future, I thought that now was as good a time as any to re-read the manga since I haven't gone back to it in years.

Even though the first arc is considerably weaker than everything that comes after it, it still amazes me how well the story-telling of this manga has aged. I could swear that Watsuki was a veteran mangaka when he wrote RK so masterfully, and yet he was considered a complete newbie among fellow mangaka when he first started this series (as his first major serialization, in fact). Its funny how everything he did after RK is what feels like the work of a newbie to the field when he was technically a veteran by the time he finished RK. I guess its sort of similar to how various artists/authors come out with one big hit which manages to strike a cord with many people and get them hooked, but then fail to capture that same level of success with any of their other works (much like Mario Puzo with The Godfather).

I really hope that the new anime and live-action film manage to be both faithful and overall well-executed adaptations of the manga, as it deserves to have another brilliant adaptation of it (with the last one having been Trust and Betrayal, something I plan to re-watch later on, as well).

It seems like all writers went brain dead after the 90s. Still got to read the manga. I have a pretty big backlog.

[Dr. Insomniac]

So I read a handful of the DCnU comics, and guess what? I liked some of them. Didn't really like Action Comics though, since Superman just seems more like Bat/Spider-Man in the first issue.